1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of driving a plasma display panel (PDP) and a PDP driven by the method, and more particularly, to a method of stably performing sustain discharges after a second sustain discharge in a sustain discharge period and a PDP structure for carrying out said method.
2. Description of the Related Art
A plasma display device includes a plasma display panel (PDP), which is a type of flat display device having a wide screen. Plasma display devices display a desired image by applying discharge voltage between two panels of the PDP in which a plurality of electrodes are formed to generate vacuum ultraviolet radiation, and exciting a phosphor by the vacuum ultraviolet radiation to produce visible rays that display the image.
A PDP has a front panel and a rear panel. The front panel includes a front substrate, a plurality of common electrodes each including a transparent electrode and a bus electrode, a plurality of scan electrodes each including a transparent electrode and a bus electrode, a dielectric layer, and a protection layer. The rear panel includes a rear substrate, a plurality of address electrodes, a dielectric layer, a plurality of barrier ribs, and a phosphor layer. The front substrate and the rear substrate are spaced apart from each other and face each other. Space between the front and rear substrates and is partitioned by the barrier ribs into a plurality of discharge cells. A dielectric substance is included near the discharge cells to achieve a panel capacitance. The discharge cells can be similarly formed using the panel capacitance and a panel capacitor combined with electrodes surrounding the discharge cells.
In driving such a PDP, an address display separation (ADS) scheme is used. A unit frame is divided into a plurality of sub-fields to display an image on the PDP. Each of the sub-fields includes a reset period, an address period, and a sustain discharge period. In each of these three periods, different driving waveform voltages are applied to each of the common electrodes, the scan electrodes, and the address electrodes. In the reset period, a ramp type reset pulse voltage is applied to a scan electrodes. In the address period, a scan pulse voltage is applied to a scan electrodes and an address pulse voltage is applied to an address electrodes. In a sustain discharge period, sustain pulse voltages are alternately applied to a common electrodes and the scan electrodes.
The PDP has low optical transmission with regard to visible rays passing through the front substrate, since the visible rays generated by exciting the phosphor must pass through a pair of sustain discharge electrodes, the dielectric layer, and the protection layer of the front substrate in order to pass through the front substrate. The PDP also has low light-emitting efficiency since the pair of sustain discharge electrodes are disposed at the front of the discharge cells including the front and rear sides thereof. A sustain discharge between the pair of sustain discharge electrodes occurs only at the front of the discharge cells, so that the discharge space is not efficiently used. Also, charged particles generated by the sustain discharge occurring at the front of the discharge cell ion-sputter the phosphor layer at the rear of the discharge cell, causing a permanent afterimage.
To solve the above problems, a PDP has been developed that has an improved structure in which the pair of sustain discharge electrodes are disposed on a barrier rib forming the sides of the discharge cell. However, the PDP having the improved structure has a different electrode structure from the above PDP. Therefore, unexpected problems may occur when the driving waveform voltages are applied to such a structure. Therefore, what is needed is an improved structure for a plasma display device and improved waveforms for driving the electrodes of the improved plasma display device that overcomes these problems.